Fun, fun, fun!

Allen was off this weekend, which is a tiny miracle. So we decided to make the most of it! He decided that we were going to have a date night on Friday night, and asked me to see if my sister, Emily, could come babysit. She rearranged her schedule and came to help out. Allen told me to dress up and took clothes to work to change into so he could "really pick me up, like a real date." He even parked next door so the kids woudn't know he was home, and I snuck out. We ate Mexican, and walked around the shopping center by where we ate. We didn't have long, since Emily had plans, but it was a great night, and so much fun to spend time together alone! I even got flowers!

The next morning, I dropped Laney and Jude off at my sweet friend Jenn's house for a bit of yard saleing by myself. Then I picked up Zane and Allen and we headed to watch a bit of Jenn's son's soccer game. It was great to see him play, and see some sweet friends there too. Then we ate a picnic lunch in the van and headed to the Magic City Art Connection. Allen and I used to go before the kids came along, and this year we felt like everyone could go have have fun! No more babies!!! We did have a blast and topped the afternoon off with Blizzards from Dairy Queen and left overs for dinner. After the kids went down, Allen watched the draft while I worked on Bible study. It was a great and wonderful end to a perfect day!

Sunday, after church, Allen told me to go spend some time by myself, so I went to run some fun errands alone! Wow! Then I came home, and he told me to relax and watch the race while he cleaned the kitchen. I was so pampered and loved on this weekend, and I really appreciated the way he took such special care of me. He even set up the sprinkler for the kids and took care of dinner, and cleaned the kitchen again! I think I'm keeping him!!!

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Party Animal

I've been all wrapped up in Publix this week, playing my own little version of the Grocery Game. They had coupons, plus sales, on things we eat, so I went a little crazy. I was planning one last trip during this sale week, and was dreading it a tad, seeing as how Zane has little patience for these sale runs. Imagine that.

My friend Heather got me all excited about the penny item at Publix yesterday, and I texted Allen to see if he would stop by on the way home and pick it up. I don't normally go to Publix on Sundays or Monday, penny items notwithstanding. It isn't usually stuff we use, but this one was. (It was supposed to be our Greenwise bathroom tissue, but in the end, it was sugar. A deal also, I guess...)

Allen said he would, and said he'd be home about 9, his usual. I suddenly had a wild, hair brained idea, and texted him back to see if maybe *I* could go when he got back. He said sure, and I hurried through my kitchen clean up and my "work out" so I could be ready as soon as he arrived.

He got home, and as I was leaving, I mentioned that I felt badly going to Publix fresh from exercising. I looked just horrible. He said anyone at Publix at 9 o'clock at night wasn't going to look too great. That made me feel a little better. (Oddly enough I did get into line behind a lady that had just worked out. Or at least she looked that way. I almost said, in my out of the house glee, "I just worked out too!" but in my mind's eye, I saw her turning around, looking at me, and saying, "I didn't just exercise...." I kept my mouth shut, in case that actually happened. So I guess in some ways, I am learning to watch what I say. Yes, miracles do happen.)

So I jumped into Allen's car, while although not a fancy car, makes me so happy to drive, like when you were 16 and you just learned how to drive. It also makes me feel less like a frumpy mom that I so usually feel like in the minivan. As I jumped in the car, I realized I was a little too excited to be going to Publix on a Monday night. I bounced around Publix in a much to happy to make sense way. I smiled a little to broadly at the other people there, and chatted it up with the nice lady who checked me out. Driving home, I thought how strangely the world looked at night. So much differently than during the day.

I had a blast on my little Monday night excursion. And when I got home, Zane had woken up and Allen, yes the Daddy, got him back to sleep. It was so nice to see that.

And I saved more than I spent. A goal of mine for a while. And as I lay down to go to sleep, I thought...

Maybe there is life past my driveway at night after all!

Storm 4-19-09

Haircut

I bought some clippers at Walmart a while back, thinking I really could cut the boys hair. Allen's even! I haven't had time to try it out, but on last Thursday, Emily was here, and I got brave. Jude was fine with it, since he'd been saying for awhile he wanted me to cut his hair. So we figured out the clippers, put the cape on him and off we went. *Ahem* First let me say it's much harder than it looks. We struggled to find the right size clipper guard. They always scissor cut his hair on the top at the hair cut place (as we call it) and I always wondered why. Well, I think I know now. I tried so hard to get it even, and there was a slight side burn incident. As in he doesn't have any anymore. We laughed so hard, I was crying. Jude was a great sport, and he likes his hair. Thank goodness for that. Emily did point out that doing this right before Easter wasn't probably the greatest idea, since people take lots of pictures at Easter. She also thought it was good that he was only 5. I asked her if that meant that she thought that I shouldn't cut Allen's hair. She definitely thought that. So I'll have a chance to try again really soon, since his hair grows crazy fast. Maybe I'll get the side burns right next time. And I think I'll use the scissors on the top. If he'll let me get close to his hair at all! :)

Resurrection Sunday

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It's the Most Wonderful Time...

My sweet blog has once again decided to space itself, so I do apologize. It's wonky and making me crazy, but I'm giving in. Hope you can read it anyway.

First of all, I have to say that this picture is totally cracking me up. I had literally been running around in the rain all day, and I didn't realize I looked as tired as I felt. http://whatiwore2day.blogspot.com/ has spoiled me from posing in any normal way. So that pretty much explains the picture. Kind of...

So anyway, the weekend after my birthday is usually the first garage sale weekend kick off. And boy was it. The boys stayed with Allen, to play video games until their brains leaked out of their ears, and Laney and I took off for some sweet girl time.

I just love garage sales. That's pretty well known, and obvious to boot. But here's the reasons why.

I've been dreaming of these books by Warren Weirsbe for a long time. Oak Mountain Presbyterian had a church wide garage sale to benefit adoption, and we hit that first. I got the whole set of books, and they were 25 cents each. I was so happy! They are books for each book of the Bible. I grabbed up the book on Ruth/Esther to read first, since we are already studying Esther, and it is so good! I was such a happy camper.

Laney and I found more great treasures at that sale, and we were just tickled! Laney's favorite was a Hello Kitty digital clock for her room. I love coming downstairs in the morning, and saying, "Hey sweetie, when did you get up?" and her saying, "At 7:24." Hilarious!

So we found a neighborhood garage sale on 119, and those are my absolute favorite. You can park your car and just walk from sale to sale. This one house is going down in garage sale history.

So as I walked up to the garage sale, I heard the lady say, "Well, that's $3, but I'll take less. Just make an offer. I'm willing to negotiate..." which was good to hear. I'm not good at wheeling and dealing at garage sales, really. I figure it's already cheap already, so if I don't want to pay what they have on it, I need to just move along. But, occasionally, especially if I'm buying a whole bunch of stuff, I'll ask someone, so politely and timidly, if they'd take less for something, half expecting them to say "no." But, since she threw it out there, I figured, "Why not?"

So there was this dress. Not a dress that I would normally be in the market for, but cool and interesting enough to get my attention. I have a 20 year high school reunion coming up next summer (excuse me while I fall into a dead faint) and I thought, "Ohhhh, this might be cool..." It was $5, which was more than I'd pay for a dress that I might wear one day. I guess this is a good time to tell you that it's a size (FINE, several sizes) smaller than I wear now. But, since I so desperately want to lose weight, I thought, "Why not get this super cool dress to wear, and have it like something to work towards?" Not that I have a closet full of clothes that I am "working towards" but I feel myself drifting from the whole point of this now too long story.

SO, I go up to the nice lady, and say, "Would you mind taking $3 for this?" since, mind you, she had JUST said she was taking less for everything. (This was late in the morning-close to the time that prices do start to be sliced. The thought of the items marching off to the Hannah Home tend to make people take whatever you're willing to give them for what they don't to donate for free...) I totally expected her to say, "Sure" and us be done.

But, she wrinkled up her nose, looked at the dress and heaved a *huge* sigh. I was slightly surprised, but decided to see where this was going. She said, "You know, this dress is from Cache." Yep, lady, I saw that. I can read. I guess she's mourning the fact that she and her daughter, I guess, went to the Galleria and into the kinda swanky store Cache and bought this sorta fancy dress. "It was EIGHTY DOLLARS, you know..." she went on. At this point, an old phrase that my dad used to say went flying through my head. It's not nice, lemme tell you, and there are some things from my childhood that I squelch down and some come bubbling when I least expect it.



So she says, "It was EIGHTY DOLLARS" and I thought, "Well, that sounds like a personal problem to me." Thanks, Dad. That phrase comes in handy SO OFTEN. Anyway, I pulled together a sympathetic look and waited for her to go on.

And here is the kicker.

She looks at me head to toe, wrinkles up that nose and SAYS, "Will it even fit you?"

Let's pause while you take that in.

I pulled myself up to all 5 feet and 4 and 1/4 inches of myself and said, "Well, not yet. But it will." And I looked her square in the eye. It wasn't about the $3 anymore. I was m.a.d.

She huffily took my $3, and I took that dang dress. I was close to the van before it was funny. I was home before it was really funny. I told Allen my story, and his eyes got big. He's normally a very, "Eh, what's the big deal?" kinda guy, but he was like, "Wow!" Then, I squirmed my way into that too-small dress and we laughed so hard I was crying. He said, "I can just see you going to your reunion just like that..." and we laughed even harder. Oh me. I don't know if I'll be in this dress by then, but I have two super skinny sisters that might want a really cool, super expensive dress from Cache. Oh me.

And it ain't over yet. I go down to the next house (yes, I was undeterred, the garage sale warrior that I am) and it was these very nice Asian ladies who had the garage sale. Well, they had great stuff, and I could immediately tell I had hit the jack pot. I quickly scooped up things for Laney, and then headed to the adult section. I bought tons of stuff for me, which made me so very happy. Most all of it was $1 each. So the outfit in the first picture, including that purse I love so much, was $3. Well, the shoes were new, from Target. They were $30, I think, so my outfit was $33. The sweater was the super soft, black fuzzy material. When I went to wash it, I died laughing, because the tag was in Chinese. Yep. Evidently that nice Asian lady brought all her clothes to America from China, or ordered them from China while she was here, and all the tags are written in Chinese. Oh well. Most of the stuff didn't fit, which is okay too. I put them in the Cache dress pile. Hopefully I'll be in them soon.

So, it was a great first day of garage sale season, and I was such a happy camper. Until...

I was watching the Today Show, and this frugal guy was on there, who touts himself as America's cheapest man. Fine for him. I'm pretty cheap too. But he said something that made me think. He said that Americans are obsessed with getting stuff for cheap, when what we should be obsessed with is NOT getting stuff at all.

Thanks, dude, for taking the wind out of my sails. So I had fun, got some new threads, but he reminded me that cheap stuff isn't necessary stuff. It's still stuff that I'm going to have to get rid of someday. So I'm still garage saleing with my list firmly in mind. Things that I NEED. Really. Truely. Not just more junk to junk up my life.

And hopefully I'll post a picture next summer of me, in my $80 Cache dress, at my reunion. And I'll never forget that darn dress. :)

Birthweek?

I called my dear friend Sandi Monday morning, and she said, "Well, are you ready for the birthday week?"
"Who else's birthday is it this week?" I asked.
She laughed. "You get to celebrate *you* all week..." she informed me.
Oh okay. Well, I kinda like that!

Monday started off with my dear friends, and we celebrated Michelle. It was her last day in town, and it was a bittersweet day. It was so hard to see that van drive down the street one last time. *sigh* I know she'll be great, but I'm already missing her and that amazing laugh.

After we left her, we were too sad to go home, so we met up with Allen. Zane decided he wanted a haircut, so we did it. I'm so glad we did. He looks just adorable. Those eyes! We ate at Moe's after the hair cut. I love Moe's.

I spent Tuesday on the couch. I mean, all day. I got up to make sure everyone had food to eat, but that was it. I don't usually even sit down during the day, but I just felt like I needed to just chill my bones. It felt good. I could have stayed there all week, I think.

Wednesday was the big day. 37. I felt weird this year, for some reason. It was hard to hear that number. I got this panicky feeling that my life was slipping away a little too quickly. I dread the thought of standing before God right now and only having thus far to give to him. Oh me.

 Jennifer asked me what I wanted to do Wednesday, and I told her. Right down to what I wanted to eat, where and how. Not much like me, really. She and the girls cancelled plans, worked hard and then gave their whole day to spend with me. It was perfect, and I felt so very blessed and cherished. I am so lucky to have these amazing women in my life to do life with. The good and the bad. Man, I'm so blessed. We had a blast! I even got to go to the thrift store. It's a birthday tradition. Allen got home at a reasonable hour and brought me a gift certificate for the Amen Corner and this beautiful little statue of a couple with a sweet verse on it. He did great on my presents this year with absolutely no help from me or Jenn! :)

Thursday we puttered around, and Allen gave me this amazing gift from another Michelle friend! I love the scarf and the earrings have spurned another blog post soon to come. Birthday week rolled on smashingly well!

Friday. Chick-fil-A and Target. Need I say more?

Saturday Laney and I got to go garage saleing for the first time this season. That blog post soon to come also. We got the boys and went to two of my other favorite places-Zoe's and Edgar's. Then we went to Heardmont Park, where they were having a celebration of sorts, with tons of jumpy and slidey things. The kids had a blast. We came home and sat in the floor and played games. Allen is playing tonight, and I'm sitting a quiet house, listening to soothing music and looking forward to working on Esther.

It was an amazing week. I feel so loved! 37 is going to be a great year! Mostly thanks to you...

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